To make your heart sing: Ev'ry valley shall be exhalted (Sir Colin Davis, Mark Padmore, LSO)

Another Outing for the Emperor's New Clothes!

I regularly spend a very pleasant few hours in Bristol Museum, where I alternate between visiting the various galleries, spending some ’quality time’ with all my favourite objects, and sitting in the vast, austerely beautiful atrium, sipping a cappuccino and reading or writing. The real joy of my visits though, is that I have a haven of solitude in which to be anonymous and invisible, so that I can think more deeply about whatever I am currently studying.


No, I have not enrolled on any official course of study, much as I might like to. The costs are beyond my reach! But I do follow my own personal study journey, and try to focus on whatever serious issue which currently interests me. The procedure is the same as that found at any University: read seriously, analyse and compare the various authorities, take notes, memorise and finally - the equivalent of formal ‘Essays’ - I try to produce, for my own interest, and for an intellectual challenge, written responses to those questions which spark my interest or intrigue me. It is supremely enjoyable and really exciting to struggle with new ideas and concepts!


Up to a couple of years ago I would never have bothered to do such a thing. I always read widely, but my reading had become superficial and undemanding. It was my meeting with the Heralds of the Gospel which changed all that. As I have said in earlier posts, there are so many aspects of this wonderful Order that I came to deeply admire, and to desire to emulate, but it was their love of deep and serious learning which really attracted me. Their example changed me completely in so many ways, and the desire to study is one of the gifts I have received from them.


So now I take my books and notebook with me wherever I go. I study on buses, in cafes, park benches, libraries, art galleries - wherever there is peace and I am undisturbed. What I have discovered, strangely enough, is that the surroundings in which you think or read deeply about something, colours your memory of that thought and that book. And the beautiful and grand interior of the Victorian museum really adds to that wonderful feeling of having an ongoing conversation with great thinkers and writers. It has a little of the same ambience that I associate with great libraries of the kind in the photos above.


But now I am going to descend from this elevated mood and express the deep irritation that I feel when I first enter the museum and see what appears to be a statue of a classically beautiful angel defaced and mocked by the artist who has upended a pot of pink paint over its head! It is a work by the internationally renowned Bristol graffiti artist ‘Banksy’


Of course, I am aware that this is an ‘ironic’, ‘postmodernist’, ’deconstructivist’ take on classical aesthetics. But every time I see it, I feel assaulted by a sort of spiritual nihilism, a desire to desecrate all that is good, or noble. And the most depressing aspect of all is, that this ‘artwork’ has been chosen to be proudly exhibited in the most prominent part of the Museum’s display area!


This work - and I think that some of Banksy’s graffiti art is clever and thought provoking - seems to show a coarseness of feeling which grates on me every time I see it.


Well, now I have done! My opinion counts for nothing here, and would no doubt be regarded as unsophisticated rantings of a middle-aged nobody. However, I will say it: this is not a ‘work of Art’! It is just another outing for the Emperor’s New Clothes!’

Intellectual rigour - powerful shield against political correctness and cultural relativism.

Picture from :http://www.you-can-teach-writing.com

“Even if the wounds of this shattered world enmesh you,

and the sea in turmoil bears you along

in but one surviving ship,

it would still befit you

to maintain your enthusiasm for studies unimpaired.

Why should lasting values tremble

if transient things fall?”
—
Prosper of Aquitaine

Thank You Lord Shadowblade!

I am delighted to be able to include a new picture of a young Herald of the Gospel at the top of my blog. The picture has been made available to me by a young 18 year old Artist from the United States. Her work, which includes a high proportion of religious art, may be found here:
http://lordshadowblade.deviantart.com/art/Herald-of-the-Gospel-86375286

She works under the pseudonym Lord Shadowblade and writes in her profile:

Why I Am Here :-

• To uphold all that is True, Good, Beautiful and Holy!


• To spread the Gospel through my Artwork


• For the Greater Glory of God and for my Soul's Salvation

Who says that young people aren't interested in their Faith? Thank You Lord Shadowblade!

IS THIS THE BEGINNING OF A RETURN TO STANDARDS?

What have these three pictures got in common?

Nothing - except that they all exhibit the highest technical standards. This technical ability is an objective reality, independent of whether we like them or whether they correspond to our personal philosophy about art.They are all technically brillant.

These and many, many more may be seen on a wonderful new website. The Art Renewal Centre (ARC) has created a large on-line Museum, with hundreds of thousands of high quality images of all the known works of the greatest painters and sculptors, cross referenced to a an encyclopaedic online art reference library of essays, biographies and articles.

The most exciting thing - for me -about it, is that it promotes the return of “training, standards and excellence in the visual arts.”

For those of us who look at much of modern art and feel instinctively and intuitively that the cult of ugliness and degradation espoused by much of the modern art confraternity is a dead end, it is hard not to feel a great sense of encouragement when we read that ARC sees its mission:

“ To repudiate the idea that development in art requires destruction of boundaries and standards, pointless emphasis on 'newness,' or pursuit of the bizarre and ugly as ends in themselves, and to expose as artistic fraud those works conceived only to elicit outrage.”

ARC wants to return to high standards and they promote the requirement for ‘recognizable quality’ in Art.

This website is a boon for artists, art historians and teachers - but it is also a breath of fresh air for 'ordinary' people like myself - the proverbial ‘man or woman on the street’ - to find a way to articulate our true views about much so called Art which we recognise immediately as being - in reality - The Emperor’s New Clothes!

So often we feel we have to be silent in front of the vulgarity and superficiality we see in our art galleries and museums simply because we don’t know how to respond to the deliberately confusing newspeak from the so-called experts. Well, now we have some assistance in the intellectual counter-reformation which is beginning! I would encourage everyone to visit this site : http://www.artrenewal.org/index.php